Employees of the Belgian State Security Service (VSSE) suspect that the acting permanent representative of Russia to the European Union, Kirill Logvinov, works for the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR). This is stated in a joint investigation by De Tjid, Spiegel, the Dossier center and several other European publications.
According to journalists, Belgian counterintelligence suspects the diplomat of “secret activities against European interests.” What exactly it consists of is unknown. As investigators write, Loginov is not expelled from Belgium due to “diplomatic sensitivity” — the European External Action Service (EAD) fears negative consequences for its representatives in Russia.
The official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, in response to the release of the investigation, recommended that Spiegel “publish a list of German intelligence agents around the world.”
“How to do this? Request the German government and conduct your own investigation. If Russian diplomats are persecuted in the Western media, Western diplomats will feel what it’s like,” TASS quotes Zakharova as saying.
After the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, decisions on the expulsion of Russian diplomats were made by the Foreign Ministries of Denmark, Italy, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Ireland, Lithuania, Spain, Greece, Luxembourg, Portugal and Japan.